The Men of His Life
by alstair
Summary: Many men have shaped the life of Jim Kirk. Here is a look at the legacy of each of them. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1: Fathers Dearest

**Chapter 1: Fathers Dearest**

Jim can still remember the first time he had asked Winona about his father, George Kirk. She was in the kitchen, washing the dishes. Her hands held a plate, fingers coated in soap bubbles, the tap running a steady jet of water. At the sound of his voice, she had stopped the scrubbing but, like always, refused to look at his five year old self. He could never understand why she refused to look at him and the few occasions that she did, she looked like she was about to cry.

"Where is papa?" His voice was still soft and innocent at that age, the question belying the confusion his as yet underdeveloped brain and inexperienced heart were unable to comprehend. He had always thought that being just the two of them, just Jim and Winona, was the most natural thing in the world - well Jim, Winona, and Sam that is. But the kids in his new class came with their moms and men who were introduced not as their uncle but as their father. They had asked his Uncle, who had brought him to school instead of his mother, if he was Jim's papa. His uncle had said no. So, with the innocence of their equally five year old selves had asked Jim the one question he couldn't answer: "Where is your papa?" Unable to answer he could only remain silent and shake his head. But the question had stuck.

It would not be Winona who would answer his question. After a few moments of silence and stillness, she had resumed her washing. And no matter how long he stood on the kitchen tiles with his bare feet and his space pajamas, she would not look his way or give any other acknowledgement that he or his question existed. Instead, he learned about his father from his teacher. She told him that George Kirk was now "far far away." That of course gave rise to many more questions that she was unable or refused to give any response to. Instead he saw pity in her eyes and a sad smile before she would usher him to go "play with his new friends."

It would be a year later that he would come to understand that his father was dead. That he had died to save his mother and him and so many others somewhere amongst the stars he sometimes gazed at in the night. It was then he understood that Winona wouldn't, couldn't, look at him, because he, more than his brother, was a living, walking, and talking reminder of the day she lost the man she loved. It didn't help that he looked uncannily like his father and that Sam, bless him, looked far more like their mother.

It also explained why his birthday was never one they celebrated. Why after a simple meal and when she thought neither of the kids could see, she would cry, her hacking sobs filtering through the not so thick walls of their Iowa farmhouse. The same day he found out the truth he discovered that he shared his day of birth with the day his father had left this world for the next. And who wouldn't cry about that?

So when Frank was first introduced as his new father, Jim wondered if that meant he would now have birthdays and that his mother wouldn't cry whenever she thought no one was looking. That someone would buy him ice cream and take him out to watch the cinema like the fathers of his classmates did for their kids. And amidst the smiles of his new step-dad, he wondered if life would get better. Oh how wrong he was.

While at first it seemed it had and Frank seemed to do a world of wonder to Winona who could now, finally, look her son in the eyes, it was short lived. Now that there was a paternal figure looking after her kids, she was free to pursue what, it appears, she had always wanted - to go back into space, the same space that had claimed her husband all those many years ago.

She would be gone months at a time and in those days and weeks where she was out somewhere in the black, Frank ceased to be the smiling father that he presented himself to be when she was around. He began to drink. Bourbon. Scotch. Vodka. Gin. Rum. Beer. The list was endless. He was more often drunk than sober. He preferred his bottles than taking care of the two boys who were left to fend for themselves. And when he did notice them, it was in the midst of punches and kicks aimed at bodies that were a long way from gaining enough muscle mass to resist.

When Winona came back from one or the other mission on those few and far in-between shore leaves, she never really saw Jim. And when Jim complained that Frank was beating them, she merely leveled him with a heavy gaze and dismissed it as the right of a man to discipline his kids when they were misbehaving. That Frank was just a strong man and that sometimes he didn't realize his own strength. And then she would be gone again and the same cycle of drinking and beatings would continue as if it was preordained in the heavens that this was the way the world worked.

So was it no surprise that Jim "did things." He learned to shoplift. He ran with the rough crowd, much older boys that liked to get into mischief. He fought, got cut lips and bruised knees. It was his way to escape the shit storm that was his home. It was a way to forget, even for a moment, that he had been handed a life that was by no means fair. As they say, when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. And in the midst of being chased by police and irate shopkeepers, he could pretend the happy-go-luck, carefree smile he wore was true.

Of course, that only gave Frank more ammunition to escalate the beatings and to get away with it. But when he was already getting away with it, even without the excuse that Jim was doing something he shouldn't be, what was the point.

Eventually Sam, dearest brother of his, had had enough. He'd had enough of the beatings, enough of futile attempts to protect Jim from the monster. So he up and left. He left a note on Jim's bedside with only two words, "I'm sorry" and the next morning he was gone. Frank alerted the police, as would have been expected of any good father, that his eldest son had run away from home. But Jim highly doubted it was because of any filial attachment the man had. It was for appearances sake so that when Winona came back he could tell her he had done everything he could to find Sam but the lad had run with the wrong crowds, been one hell of a troublemaker never mind that it was actually Jim and not Sam that fit that picture.

And did Jim resent Sam for that? No. Sam was smart. He left when he could. Jim couldn't begrudge Sam that. If he had had any sense, he probably should have left sooner too. But with Sam gone, the noose around Jim tightened. He was hardly allowed to leave and was subjected to more and more of Frank's black moods. And every chance Frank got, he made Jim feel like the biggest failure this side of the galaxy.

So one fine July day, with the sun shining brightly above the corn fields, Jim stole Frank's car. It was an antique retrofitted with some of this century's latest gizmos. It was Frank's pride and joy. And, underage that he might have been, he drove it straight into the gorge, a few clicks north. That, of course, was the proverbial nail on the coffin. He earned Frank's undivided attention that night. That was when he learned that Frank sober was worse than Frank drunk. And black and bruised, he was shipped off to Tarsus IV so he could "learn to behave like a man and not some punk-ass kid who would never do anything with his life."

But life it seemed, regularly shat on Jim. Who would have thought that the chance to be separated from Iowa and the life he had lived would be the prelude to a nightmare.


	2. Chapter 2: At the Hands of a Dictator

**Chapter 2: At the Hands of a Dictator**

Jim had always been smart. His teachers had often remarked that Jim showed an aptitude for learning that far exceeded any of the kids his age and even some of those much older than him. His IQ was off the charts. They couldn't teach him fast enough. No wonder that the schools on Earth barely knew what to do with him. He grew bored quickly with the mundane lessons in school and chose instead to learn his own lessons outside of it.

Tarsus IV changed all that. A colony built by some of the brightest and most gifted minds of that time, Tarsus IV was perfect for a kid who could solve complex mathematical problems at the age of 13 that others in college had difficulty even trying to comprehend. And for once in his life, Jim felt that he belonged. And he soaked all they taught him like a sponge did water.

But even among the talented kids in Tarsus IV, Jim was special. It didn't take long that Kodos, the leader of that colony, started to take notice.

Kodos took Jim under his wing, became the father that Jim never had. In school Jim learned calculus, xenolinguistics, and advanced physics. With Kodos he learned strategy, tactics, and governance. He was the protege that Kodos had always looked for. And Jim would not have had it any other way. Jim looked up to Kodos and Kodos basked in that regard.

Many days, instead of returning immediately to his Aunt and Uncle's house or joining some of the other kids in playing soccer amongst the fields that flanked the east and west of the agricultural colony, he would head to the governor's residence. There, Kodos, would greet him with chess and teach him about Sun Tzu and Machiavelli.

So when the gentle pats Kodos gave Jim when he won in chess or the guiding hand he offered to Jim when he taught the him how to hold and fire a phaser lingered longer than they should, Jim didn't mind. Kodos after all was the first man in his life that had truly seen Jim for what he was and acknowledged Jim for what he was capable of. Kodos gave Jim a goal, an aspiration, and to someone who had been hitherto floundering on the shores of life, he took to it like a moth to a flame.

Then the crops started to fail. He watched with growing worry as Kodos would pace his study with a frown and a creased brow. He would tell Jim that they would weather these latest troubles. He would say "James, we will get through this, I promise." He would say this in a soft voice, as though he was trying to will himself to believe that everything would be fine even when his mind told him that it would only get worse before it got any better. Those days, Jim would sit beside Kodos. Kodos would take Jim's hand and that would be enough. And for a short space of time, they would believe that everything in the world was indeed right and not the literal hell it would inevitably descend into.

Jim would always carry with him the guilt that, of all people, he should have seen the signs. After all, he was the closest to Kodos. The man had been his father in all but name. Not to mention that something that lingered in the spaces and silences between them that wasn't quite fatherly but they refused to put a definite finger on. He had been there, all those days and nights in the governor's house, watching Kodos mutter about the need to make sacrifices to preserve the greater good as the food shortages grew more rampant and the rationing stricter. But he was far too much in awe of Kodos to truly comprehend the subtle signals until it was too late, until he saw that damned list hidden in one of Kodos' drawers one day.

At first he refused to believe what he read. A list of those who would be executed - executed so others could live. He refused to believe that Kodos would do something as horrendous as to enforce the mandatory death of half of the colony. What right did he, or anyone for that matter, have to arbitrarily choose who would die and who would live?

But Kodos, seeing the list in Jim's hands, gently pried it loose and sat him down. And with the same mild and patient tone he used to explain some of the more complex concepts in strategy or explain a tactical error Jim performed during a chess match, explained eugenics. "James, this is a chance to not only save this colony but to preserve and promote those who are better suited and whose traits are more valuable to this world."

Jim hid his shock, did not pull back when Kodos squeezed his shoulder. He did not immediately run when he left the building, Kodos' request for him to go straight home and to stay there still ringing in his ears. And while he did head straight home, it was not to hide but to warn his Aunt and Uncle. But instead of the sight of his Aunt with her apron making her version of apple pie and his uncle in his flannel shirt watching one or the other sports channel, he was met with silence and a note that said that they had gone to the bank. And he knew then that they would not be coming back.

Then he remembered the names on the list. Kevin. Janice. Andy. Martha. Lisa. Thomas. Nicolas. Andrei. Nick. Kathy. He had to get to them. His classmates. Just kids. None of them deserved to die. They still had so much more to give to life. What made him so different from them that they could not be spared but he could be. So he ran. He ran until his legs felt like giving out. He ran until he found them playing out in the cornfields - or what was left of them, the dried out stalks and parched ground ravaged by the fungus that had taken root.

At first they didn't believe him. Who would? But he persisted until they agreed to follow him into the woods and from there to the caverns in the northern side of town that he had at one point explored. It was good that they did. After the initial purge, armed soldiers patrolled the streets shooting anyone outside their house. They watched in horror where they stood at the edge of the woods as a young couple, no more than twenty years old, were found by a group of the armed men. It wasn't long before the red of their blood stained the ground where the had been standing, the young girl's eyes glassy and unseeing in death as they fell.

And so they began their hand to mouth subsistence, the hunger distending their stomachs, fever a constant companion and far more deadly and agonizingly painful that any phaser shot. But the meager sustenance they had managed to take with them as they had fled would not be sufficient to feed that many mouths. And each night that Starfleet failed to appear, their hopes dimmed a bit more. Jim could not stand by and watch them suffer. No matter the danger at hand, he needed to replenish their supplies. They needed food. They needed medicine for Kathy and Nick who had developed a fever and chill that could not be brought down. Leaving Kevin in charge of the rest, Jim ventured back into the city.

But what should have been a simple raid on the government supplies turned out to be much more. Caught by the guards, Jim was presented before Kodos. Whereas Jim carried the unmistakable signs of starvation and dehydration, his bones starting to show against his pale skin, eyes red rimmed, Kodos looked no different. He carded his fingers through Jim's hair all the while questioning Jim. "Why did you run Jim?" "Why did you betray me?" "Why did you do this to yourself, we were supposed to weather this together?" ...Why?

Then he pressed Jim for the location of the other kids. Jim refused. Kodos would not take no for an answer. Somehow the man came to believe that these "good for nothing kids" had poisoned his James against him. That it was in his rights to rid the world of such scum so that Jim could once more take his place by his side where he rightfully belonged. And he whispered in a feverish voice that Jim knew, had to know, that all of this was for him. That everything Kodos had done was to ensure a future where he and Jim could be together and continue a legacy that should have been stamped out all those years ago during the Eugenics War.

And as he became more fanatical and desperate, he resorted to torture. And after he would come to his senses, seeing the pain that Jim bore, he would break down and whisper and shush Jim, tears in his eyes begging his forgiveness. "I don't want to do this James. But I need to set you free. Please James, just tell me and it will all stop."

Jim held on for four days. His skin became raw where they had applied and re-applied a dermal regenerator to his skin each time they cracked it open with their belts and whips. His eyes could barely open, the light of the room piercing his vision whenever he did, his nerve endings fried from the electricity that had been passed through it. His bones felt brittle, broken and patched and then re-broken over and over again in an endless cycle of agony. His mouth tasted of vomit and blood. His throat had become hoarse with screaming. But in all that time, he had not broken, the secret of where his friends were dying on his tongue.

When Starfleet finally came on the fifth day, they found him near death's door, Kodos cradling his nearly lifeless form whispering how much he loved Jim so would Jim only tell him where his friends were. He needed to find them and take them away so Jim could be set right again. The officers that found Jim could only watch in mingled horror and pity. It would be be several days later that Jim would open his eyes to the white-washed walls of a starship medical bay amongst a sea of refugees. Kevin and the others had been found, Starfleet having combed the entire planet's surface with their sensors for any sign of life. But they had not come in time. Kathy and Nick had succumbed to the fever. They had joined the thousands of others that perished from Kodos' twisted ideals leaving Jim and those that remained with the guilt of the living.

And despite the alcohol he would later imbibe in copious amounts, Jim could never quite banish the pervading scent of blood or forget the sunken and haunted eyes of those that witnessed that tragedy first hand. And the guilt. Always the guilt, chasing him no matter where he turned, eating at him behind the bravado and shit-eating grins he adopted to hide his battered soul.


	3. Chapter 3: The Man Who Lit a Flame

**Chapter 3: The man who lit a flame**

"I dare you to do better."

Jim had only known this man, this Starship Captain, for a grand total of 12 minutes, the same amount of time his father had apparently been captain of the USS Kelvin before it had gone down in flames and glory, and yet he acted as though he knew everything there was to know about Jim. What did he know of Jim's past. Did he know that Jim had survived the worst genocide this century had seen. Hadn't he already done better than his old man. He had, after all, lived.

Enlist in Starfleet. What kind of idiot would he be to enlist in the very "humanitarian and peacekeeping armada" that had failed to save him and everyone he had known, that had let Tarsus IV happen. He, like many others who had survived, nursed a hatred for this organization that had allowed them to suffer as they had.

So why did Captain Pike's words sting as much as they did. Why did they keep repeating in Jim's head like a broken record. Why did he feel like he wanted to prove to Pike that he wasn't just some Iowa farm boy, some genius repeat offender.

Jim could only shrug. As he slung his legs over his bike, he would firmly blame his decision to go to the Riverside Docks on the alcohol still singing through his system and the throbbing pain from the beating he had taken from those red-shirted cadets.

He found Pike standing outside the shuttle for new recruits, waiting for him. It slightly grated Jim that despite his dismissal of Pike's proposition in the bar that evening the man appeared confident that Jim would indeed show up. So he decided, he'd show the man up. Instead of the four years it would normally take to complete the training, he would do it in three. The grin Pike gave him clearly said "prove it."

And it seemed Captain Pike wanted to have a front seat in the Jim Kirk show. To Jim's chagrin, the man had listed himself as Jim's academic sponsor. That meant that Jim had to report to Pike's office every other Tuesday for an hour-long session with the old man where they were to go over his progress. It also meant that Pike knew the moment Jim decided to even so much as sneeze or look the wrong way and get his ass handed to him with a stern scolding.

But what Jim didn't expect was for Pike to cover for Jim when their ethics class started to discuss the topic of Tarsus IV and he couldn't handle how everyone seemed to be able to calmly discuss the pros and cons of what Kodos had done as though the genocide was nothing more than an academic exercise and not an event that had claimed the lives of thousands and was still a festering wound on many others' lives. He didn't expect Pike to look the other way when he was certain the man knew he had bullshitted his way through his psych evals. He didn't expect him to vouch for Jim when he applied for all the extra classes in his Command Track or when he regularly pissed off the instructors that taught them with his smart-ass comments.

Nor did Jim expect that those hour-long Tuesday sessions would not just be about handing Jim his ass and stern lectures about behavior fitting for a member of Starfleet but would also be about chess, an odd glass of bourbon or scotch, and frank conversations about things Jim needed to know about how the Admiralty worked or the latest theories about strategy and tactics.

It felt quite distinctly like those first days with Kodos when everything was still good and his faith in the man had yet to be shaken. But unlike those days, the Kirk now was less naive and Pike, despite his candor, remained professional through and through. And if Jim voiced any of his more sarcastic and smart-ass responses, Pike saw right through. And Pike was there each time, daring Jim to be better, to do better, aim higher, run faster.

Jim once more had a purpose in his life, one which as the days progressed he learned to embrace with the same excitement and fervor that he'd had when he first came to Tarsus. And while he would never concede anything to Pike, he was grateful that the man had believed in Jim enough to give him a second chance at a future.

And so it was when, as he heard the words "a lightning storm in space" from the vid screen of the ensign navigator, he knew it was his turn to repay a small portion of what Pike had, unwittingly, given back to Jim. And he knew, Pike, despite the disapproval he had voiced after the hearing on his "modifications" to the Kobayashi Maru exam, would listen to him, trust him.

He wasn't wrong.


	4. Chapter 4: Of Doctors and Friends

**Chapter 4: Of Doctors and Friends**

The first impression he had of Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, the man he had dubbed and would thereafter call "Bones" was that the man had a seriously bleak outlook on life. Not that Jim begrudged him that. After all, Jim was Jim, the man the universe had seemed so determined to hand out a bag of shit instead of the proverbial lemons. So okay the man had a bad case of aviophobia. And he had to be seriously mental, or extremely desperate, to enlist in Starfleet when it operated in space even if he had "nothing left except his bones." Or that vomiting your breakfast and at least a quart of scotch on your seatmate's lap was certainly not the best way to introduce yourself. But for some reason Jim found himself drawn to the good doctor.

And fate it seemed had decided to amuse itself when, arriving at the dorms, he found himself face to face with the doctor who, apparently, was destined to be his roommate the next three years. So they proceeded to re-introduce themselves after the fiasco on the shuttle at another good old bar and, as per Jim Kirk fashion, a round of bar fights.

And Bones, despite his grumbling, patiently healed Jim in the common room when he had adamantly refused to be brought to medical. It would be the first of many such occurrences over the years.

Jim would eventually learn, over the course of many other nights nursing a pint of beer or just hanging out, that Bones had been married before to a bitch called Jocelyn. That he had one sweet young daughter who his ex-wife had taken full custody of. That she had cheated on him but had taken the "whole damned planet" during their divorce, leaving Bones with little to his name other than the money he spent getting to Riverside. And that he was still drowning in the guilt that he'd had to euthanize his own father at his father's request after months and months of futile research to find a cure only for it to be discovered a week after his father's death.

On that point, Jim could completely understand the feeling of icy self-hatred and the lead weight that would settle somewhere in the gut. And while he divulged his ugly childhood with Frank one heavily drunken night, he let Bones believe that the guilt he felt was connected to those experiences. He let Bones believe that the worst he had experienced was child abuse at the hands of his step-father rather than the horrifying torture he'd experienced at the hand of a madman that he had not only hero-worshiped but had, in his own way, probably loved.

So he wasn't playing fair. But there were just some things that were best left in the black void. Besides, he had been firmly warned by Starfleet Command about divulging his past - not that he had any inclination to in the first place. Let the world believe that he was no more than George Kirk's son, a boy weighed by a dead man's legacy and a less than stellar childhood.

It seemed so wrong to accept Bones' kindness when he wasn't being completely honest. But he did.

The nights that nightmares made him toss and turn, made sleep impossible, and left him screaming hoarse into the night, Jim clung to Bones like a drowning man would to a life raft. Those nights, Bones would get up and walk over to where Jim would lie on his bed and instead of a hypospray of sedatives, would get underneath the covers and hold Jim tight, whispering in the dark that everything was alright, and that Bones was there and would always be there. And for a short time, Jim would believe. He would believe that this time around, he wouldn't be abandoned and betrayed. He would believe that, for just this moment in time, everything in the universe was all right.

And as the days, weeks, and months rolled by, he found himself relying on that kindness more and more. He found himself finding comfort in the sight of Bones sitting at his desk, brows furrowed while trying to study for his Xenobiology exams or finding the good doctor's scrubs tossed aside haphazardly after a particularly hard day at Academy medical. It seemed all so normal, all so natural, that the two of them should co-exist, Jim and Bones, with all their constant bickering, the doctor's grousing and being a mother hen, and Jim's ear-splitting grins at Bones' frustration.

So when the doctor's touches after patching him up after yet another bar fight started to linger longer and the arms encircling Jim after yet another nightmare pulled him closer, Jim couldn't help but be freaked out. After all, despite his reputation as a ladies' man, truthfully, the level of devotion that he could see staring at him from Bones' eyes was something he had only ever seen once. And that had not been a pretty sight. So was it any wonder that Jim bolted, literally and metaphorically.

Jim chose to stay away, spending his nights in various female cadet's quarters. It didn't matter whether the cadet was actually a human or humanoid, all that mattered was that he could drown his own fears and insecurities in another's bed. With these women he played fast and loose, making it clear he was there for the sex and nothing more. After all, he had no intentions of ever entering into the sort of commitment that would lead to the lady walking down an aisle.

He knew he was hurting Bones, saw it in the sadness that tinged the man's eyes even though the rest of his demeanor seemed unchanged. But Bones let it slide. He did not question when Jim would wander in at three in the morning smelling of booze, women, and sex. He did not question when Jim sported hickeys and quietly put a dermal regenerator over the offending spots until they vanished. But he made it abundantly clear that what he had said then, in the darkness of the night as he had held Jim close, he held fast to. Bones wasn't going away anywhere. He would stay by Jim's side through thick and thin. Through hell or high water. And damn, if that didn't sound like a wedding vow.


	5. Chapter 5: Of Vulcans

**Chapter 5: Of Vulcans**

Theirs was an epic friendship. At least that's how the old Spock, the Spock from that other timeline, had described it. And Jim had seen it, in the midst of the mind meld the elder Vulcan had forced on him. He saw the other Jim with this other Spock and how like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle they fit. And they trusted each other not only with their lives but also with their thoughts and their fears, those little bits of their heart and soul that were delicate and fragile little things, so easily scarred and broken if the other failed to take care of it.

So what was so different with this Spock, the Spock of this timeline. Well for one, he met this Spock at his academic hearing. They were defendant and accuser respectively. He had beat Spock's Kobayashi Maru with some creativity on his part and he was leveled with the accusation of cheating. This Spock believed in no-win scenarios. Jim didn't. After all, if he did, then what the hell was his life if not a series of a man "cheating" at no-win scenarios.

The other was that this Spock was Captain and he had chosen to maroon Jim on Delta Vega. And while that allowed him to meet with the man he had subsequently dubbed Spock Prime, it nonetheless left a sour taste on Jim's mouth.

Would his and this Spock's relationship ever approach that of that other lifetime or had that opportunity been wiped out irrevocably by the alteration in reality created by the Narada? Certainly Spock Prime's request to emotionally compromise this timeline's Spock would not endear Jim in any way. And even then, to put Jim and Spock together, brash impulsiveness against calm logic, only seemed to be the recipe for disaster. Hell, the pointy-eared bastard's penchant for quoting the percentages of probabilities of the various outcomes of courses of action and for upholding Starfleet regulation even when the better course of action was to break it was something that annoyed Jim to no end.

So when Jim felt Spock's fingers choking his breath, he wasn't surprised. Hell, he'd have expected even more than just a choke hold. What he didn't expect was the level of emotional transference that happened. He didn't just see the usually calm and collected Vulcan snapping. He could feel it, an undercurrent of rage, grief, and guilt all wrapped up in a tight ball running through Spock's veins. He could feel Spock's pulse throbbing, the adrenaline making it beat faster than normal.

Jim could also only assume that the emotional transference worked both ways. If Jim got a glimpse as to what Spock was feeling, then surely Spock could feel what Jim felt - the grim determination to prevent what had happened to Vulcan from happening to Earth. And as Spock withdrew his fingers at Ambassador Sarek's voice, Jim saw that flicker of understanding in Spock's eyes. And when Spock relinquished command he knew that it wasn't just because Spock had to accept that he was emotionally compromised but also because he had felt in Jim the silent promise he was making to Spock that never again would a world needlessly be destroyed. Never again would thousands of lives be lost on account of a single madman. Whether he was talking about Nero or Kodos, well, he knew he probably meant both.

So when Spock, after only a few hours, returned to the bridge and not only confirmed Chekov's telemetry but also offered his services to board the enemy ship Jim thought that perhaps Spock Prime wasn't so crazy to decide to pair him with his younger counterpart. That the pair had worked, quite flawlessly in fact, in disabling the Narada and getting Pike back was perhaps the surest sign that Vulcans did indeed not lie.

And when all was said and done and the Enterprise had once again regained its white splendor after months of retrofitting after its tussle with the Narada, Jim decided to trust in the other Spock. And when this universe's Spock submitted his candidacy to be Jim's first officer, Jim could only wholeheartedly accept.

That didn't mean that he wouldn't find Spock's ways any less annoying or their arguments any less frequent.


	6. Chapter 6: Of Vulcans, again

**Chapter 6: Of Vulcans, again**

Theirs was an epic friendship. Or at least that's what Jim wants to believe. In all the months he'd come to be associated with the half-Vulcan, he had thought Spock his friend, and a rather good one at that. He still exasperated Jim many times with his overly logical approach to all things but to Jim it had gone the way of Bones' grumpiness - that of a constant in his life he'd come to find particularly endearing as much as something he would roll his eyes over.

There was however a limit to how logical Spock could be. Like when it involved his life. The good of the many overrides the good of the one? Bullshit. As he had told Spock while he stood amidst the molten and shifting lava flows inside the volcano in Nibiru, this was Spock's life they were talking about. Did he not, even once, consider that because he valued Spock as a friend, that Spock's life was far more precious than the whole lot of those natives that had been chasing them in the forest. How would he ever find a First Officer that he could not only work well with but who he could enjoy a quiet evening playing chess with and actually manage to have a challenge of it. How could he ever replace the pointy-eared bastard with his ability to think up third and fourth order consequences of his actions and who could tell him off that the course of action he was about to take was "illogical" and yet he could rely on to back him up completely nonetheless.

And what of Uhura? Jim was sure Uhura felt just the same way. The two were together after all. Surely, Spock should know that losing him would devastate her. He had seen the fear in her eyes, heard the tremble in her voice, saw her hands shake as she held her breath in the seconds before they finally saw Spock's form materialize on the transporter pad.

And then, after all was said and done and they had hauled Spock's ass from the fires he went and threw Jim under the bus. Sure, Spock was being Spock with his mantra that "Vulcan's can not lie." But Jim had thought that Spock understood that Jim considered him a friend, never mind that he hadn't actually used the word "friend" in front of Spock. Surely the Vulcan must comprehend somewhere in that logical brain of his that the quiet evenings when he would confide in Spock his own insecurities about being a Captain, when he would stay by the Vulcan's biobed for long hours the one time that he had gotten horribly sick, when he patiently tried to explain to Spock the nuances of human interaction and culture - that he hadn't done these just because he was the Captain.

Clearly Jim had overestimated the connection he had thought he'd forged with, at the very least, the Terran half of Spock. He was, in almost all things, Vulcan first. Jim should have long ingrained that into his head. And that's why Jim, despite the pain he felt at what in his books he would have considered a betrayal of his trust, couldn't really hold it against Spock. Besides, if he really thought of Spock as a friend then wasn't it just part and parcel of being a friend to forgive and forget?

So Jim forgave although the forgetting would probably take a bit longer. And that was why when the time came, he asked Admiral Marcus to reinstate Spock. Because the reasons why Jim chose to save Spock even if he had to violate the Prime Directive remained true then as now.

Then of course, Jim being Jim, he couldn't stand idly by when his crew was plummeting to a certain death, warp core misaligned. And after everything was over and done with and he lay gasping at the foot of the ten inch thick safety doors that separated the irradiated chambers he had emerged from from the rest of the engineering floor he hadn't quite expected Spock to be the one kneeling in front of him looking like his world was crumbling into pieces. He hadn't expected that for once the emotions that lurked somewhere deep inside Spock would be worn on the half-Vulcan's sleeves so openly.

So with the last few breaths Jim had he knew he needed Spock to understand why he had gone back for him in Nibiru, why he would have gone back for Spock in any other time or place, and why he would continue to lay his life down for the Vulcan if he had any more heartbeats within his battered body left to spare.

They weren't the Spock and Jim of that other timeline. They didn't need to define or compare themselves with their counterparts. They were the Spock and Jim of this lifetime. It may have taken longer, required more fumbling on their parts, but as Jim parted his fingers into the ta'al and the last shuddering breath left his body, his last sight were the tears running down Spock's cheeks and his last thought was that at last, Spock understood.


	7. Chapter 7: The Man with Phoenix Blood

**Chapter 7: The man with the blood of a phoenix**

He was both his downfall and his savior. True, Jim's decision to go down into the warp core was his and his alone but certainly this man was part and parcel of the cause why he'd even had to in the first place. And that whatever this man had flowing through his veins was now keeping Jim alive was also a fact he could hardly deny.

Lying in his hospital bed, Jim didn't really know if he should hate or thank Khan. He figured he should probably do both. But that wasn't entirely accurate. Even though Khan had wrought immeasurable damage not only to the people he cared about, his ship and his crew, but also to the people of San Francisco, he couldn't truly hate the man.

The thing is, he and Khan weren't too different. Khan would do anything for his crew, even if that meant facing the wrath of the entire Federation. Jim had given his everything for his crew and would do so again in a heartbeat. And if Jim had been subjected to the kind of psychological blackmail that Admiral Marcus had wielded against Khan for a full year he had no doubt that he might have reacted not so differently.

While he had replied to Bones that he felt no particular murderous psychopathic tendencies what he felt was worse. He didn't know if it was because of any special properties that Khan's blood possessed or it was because he had actually died this time around that something resembling cold clarity filled him. If he could laugh, he might with some chagrin concede that perhaps this feeling that pervaded him might not be too far from the "serenity that logic offers" that Spock always said was the gift of Surak to the Vulcan race. The difference was that this clarity by no means gave him any peace of mind.

And truthfully, although he said that he couldn't quite hate Khan and that that thought sobered him, it was also true that within him the embers of the boiling rage that had taken root as he had looked on Pike's dead body and sworn revenge had not yet completely died.

Jim was aware that there was only one way for him to sort out everything and there was only a small window for him to do it. Despite Bones' warning that he shouldn't stress his body out and that he was still very much under observation since they did not know full well what the effects of the serum derived from Khan's blood would do and since his body was still in the process of regenerating every cell in it, he had placed the call to Admiral Barnett.

And so it was that before Khan was to be put back to his cryotube into what would most likely be a millennium of frozen sleep Jim stood before the man who who had single-handed wrought so much destruction and yet had given him back so much life.

Perhaps it was the clarity that had descended in him after his return to life that compelled Jim to say to Khan that he forgave him for all he had done. Perhaps it was because he too was a Captain that he let Khan know that his people hadn't perished in the torpedoes the Enterprise had detonated on the Vengeance, that he was in fact going back to join them in their eternal slumber. Perhaps it was because, for all the inhuman strength that Khan had displayed, Jim sensed that some humanity still remained in the other man's soul that he promised him that he would never again allow Khan and his crew to be used as a pawn in any other power game. And as Jim watched the cryotube's door shut he hoped he hadn't mistaken the spark of gratitude he had seen in Khan's otherwise inscrutable mask.

Returning to the hospital where Bones promptly fussed over him and complained about his lack of common sense and his stubbornness, Jim now knew that while he and Khan had many similarities he was not Khan and never would be.


	8. Chapter 8: The Man In the Mirror

**Chapter 8: The man in the mirror**

Jim wasn't the same. After taking all the shit that the world had thrown at him, after surviving things that had broken grown men, after dying and being brought back to life, it was really no surprise. The man in Jim's mirror wasn't the same as the boy who had taken his first steps on a white porch somewhere in Iowa, wasn't the same as the young man who traded fists in bars like others traded words, wasn't the cadet with the soaring ambition to grab hold of the stars, wasn't the fledgling captain who wanted nothing more than to do what was right by his men.

In less than an hour he would stand before a sea of officers and cadets, men and women who like him were there to commemorate the lives lost and rechristen the Enterprise as their renewed symbol of hope and if he were frank, a symbol that they who remained among the living would continue the will of those who had gone before them.

Pike had once said that he was not yet ready to truly be a captain. He had been thrust into that world too soon, too fresh, too naive. He had been right then. Jim hadn't fully comprehended the oath he had been made to take. But today, he would stand before that crowd a man who knew with every fiber of his being the gravity of the position he had been entrusted with. He was still the same Jim that would rush to save his friends, face down homicidal maniacs hell bent on destroying everything that mattered most without ever backing down, who would fight with every ounce of his being stagnation and impotence. That bit hadn't changed, wouldn't change. What was different was that this time around, he was wiser.

There had been many men who had shaped his life, men who for good or ill had come to shape Jim into who Jim was. And while it would be inevitable that there would be many more men who would before he really and truly died next time around, there was only one man that could ultimately define who he was - Jim himself.

There had been a time when Jim had snuck out the back of their Iowa farmhouse, face black and blue, Sam a step behind him. Despite the hurt on his face and the worried looks Sam wore, he had flashed his biggest grin at his brother. He had carried with him a small black bag which he set down between them as they sat behind the huge water tank near the very edge of their property. From inside he had pulled out a bar of chocolate and a bottle of brandy. He'd passed the bar to his brother and took the bottle, uncorked it, and held it between them and over the small drain beside the tank. It was Frank's most expensive liquor and scared as they were of his eventual retaliation once he discovered what they had done, they knew that what they were about to do was more important. Looking at each other with solemn eyes, they jointly chugged the entire contents down the drain, a silent pact that no matter what horrors Frank or their lives would bring they would never forget that they had a choice. They could choose to roll over and die or to do something about all the shit. And they had.

With Kodos it was about proving he was above what the man had thought he'd molded in Jim, that he wouldn't give in. Not to the hunger. Not to the pain. Not to the fear. Jim could have broken countless times in the seemingly unending moments between the waves of electricity that coursed through his body, in the searing instant the barbs on the whips bit into his tender flesh, in the agonizing caresses of the madman. But Jim had not because even then he knew that there was something more precious than his own life - his friends. And Jim chose to gladly die for his friends. No matter that Kodos had thought they were unworthy to live. What mattered was that Jim believed they had every right to. Jim wouldn't be what Kodos wanted him to be because it sure as hell wasn't how Jim was or thought himself to be.

Jim wasn't George Kirk. Just because he carried around that man's name didn't mean that the world could measure him by the yardstick of his father. Over the years he had grown tired of people thinking they knew him and then when he acted otherwise compared him to his father. Said he was a disappointment. That he was dishonoring the memory of a great man. And even when he had done well people assumed it was because he was his father's son. No one had really seen him for who he was until he'd met Pike and Pike had dared him to choose to be better than what others had pegged him for.

Captaincy wasn't about the title being thrust at you like some many spangled thing that could be worn with little consequence. Lives hung in the balance of his every decision. You had to choose to a Captain. You had to make a conscious decision to accept the responsibility, the weight of it. Khan had made him realize that all too well even when Nero hadn't. There was a reason why a captain who was emotionally compromised had to relinquish his command. There was no room to play any games when you sat on that chair on the bridge, no room to put your ego or your personal vendettas before the risk of losing the ship or your crew.

Pike was gone. With his death Jim had lost not only a friend and mentor but a father. He had been the first man who had truly earned that title. As Jim stepped out onto the stage where he would deliver his speech to those assembled he hoped Pike would be proud. There would still be much ahead for himself and the crew of the Enterprise. There may even come a time when he would need to give her up and accept a higher calling. But until that time came, he made a vow to be the best captain the Enterprise would ever have. To serve with distinction and pride.


End file.
